With the S10 rubber cushions in the newly fabbed mounts, I was able to put the cab back on and add the box, fenders and running boards. With everything in place I started measuring and playing around with the gaps until everything fit nicely and I had everything pretty much into what should be the final resting places. Before installing the drivetrain, I wanted to get the running boards and the rear bed area figured out.
The bed was quite straightforward. I wanted to have as little loss of bed depth as possible, so I decided to do 2 things. First off, I will most likely use steel checkerplate as the bed floor as this saves me about ¾ of an inch vs wood (and its simple, cheap, and once rusted will blend right in with the look of this truck). If I later want, I can always lay down some thin, weathered boards to have a wood floor, and the checkerplate will only cost me a fraction of an inch in depth.
Secondly I decided to drop the floor down from the stock S10 position. My goal was to have it very close to the top of the frame at the highest point of the kickup. The original S10 bed was roughly an inch above this, and as I recall there were no serious clearance issues to be had by coming down a bit. I was relying on memory (bad idea), so time will tell if I was wrong!
My brother came over and gave me a hand fabbing up the basic tube steel frame, which snugly fits inside the box. We made sure its 100% square, so this will make lining things up easy, and will force the somewhat floppy box into perfect shape. I wanted to be able to remove and install this tube frame easily, so here’s how I did it.
I set the tube frame in place on top of the S10 frame, then I spent a ton of time getting it perfectly level, and dead square in relation to the S10 frame. I added all the spacers while it was clamped in place, and did the same for the mounts that I fabbed and then temporarily bolted to the frame. I wanted to be able to install/remove this frame easily so I opted to use studs, so that I can install the tube frame by simply setting it into position and then adding nuts from underneath (easy one man job). I drilled all the holes and installed the studs (just 7/16th bolts with the heads cut off) while it was clamped and square. Here is the tube frame in place:
Here is the underside of the tube frame which shows the spacers, studs, and a notched crossmember (this sits on the high point of the frame above the rear wheels):
And here is a side shot, that shows how low it sits on the S10 frame:
Once it was all done, I did a test removal and reinstall, and its super easy to lift into place, and it drops right into place (no fooling around trying to square it up every time).
More to follow!